At nine, girls start to disappear from the playground.

The girls you want on your team are standing at the edge of the pitch.

Every line is one child moving through recess. Blue fills the middle. Red traces the edges. We are architects and urban designers, and for years we have mapped how children move in schoolyards and parks. The pattern is the same everywhere: the space is designed for one game, and girls are designed out.

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Only 8% of girls aged 13–15 meet activity guidelines Football pitches take 28–35% of school grounds 2–6% is left for everything else Girls spend over 70% of recess on the edges In the park, boys claim 8.5% of usable space. Girls get 1% Even dogs get 2% Only 8% of girls aged 13–15 meet activity guidelines Football pitches take 28–35% of school grounds 2–6% is left for everything else Girls spend over 70% of recess on the edges In the park, boys claim 8.5% of usable space. Girls get 1% Even dogs get 2%

⁰¹What is footballcentrism?

One game takes the centre. Everyone else gets the edge.

Footballcentrism is a spatial bias. Schoolyards and parks are planned around a large, central, best-maintained football pitch. Competitive, team-based, traditionally male-coded play gets the most visible space. Everything else — sitting, talking, dancing, climbing, handstands — is squeezed into what is left over.

The pitch becomes territory. Confident boys hold it. Girls, and boys who don't play football, learn early where they don't belong — and carry that lesson into streets, squares and adult life.

How a typical schoolyard is divided

Football pitch

Paths, entrances, leftover hard surface

28–35%Football pitch

2–6%Space left for any other activity

Girls do not question space. They adjust. They adapt.

Adaptation is not strength. It is erasure. — Architektoniczki, 2025

⁰²What we saw

The numbers from the field.

#39Schoolyards

2–6%

of school grounds are left for anything other than the pitch.

#50Schoolyards

~100%

of football-pitch use is by boys. It is the most visible space in the school.

#50Schoolyards

70%+

of girls' observed time is spent on the periphery, often in shaded or hidden corners.

#48Schoolyards

80%

Girls' routes are about 80% as long as boys'. Their movement is limited across the whole yard.

#49Schoolyards

60%

of girls' activities are seated or stationary. Boys' play is mostly active.

#47Park

8.5% vs 1%

Boys claim 8.5% of the park's usable space. Girls get 1%, mostly benches. Dogs get 2%.

#54Park

2 girls

joined the boys' football in one month of observation — on just two occasions.

#63Park

After dark

the park becomes a male domain. Girls are absent — held back by safety concerns, not by choice.

Findings from Architektoniczki field research. Full data and sources in the project guide.

⁰³Mapped paths

Four schoolyards. Same story.

Schoolyard 01

One big court block takes the whole open yard. Every route starts at the same door.

Schoolyard 02

Boys spread across the open yard. Girls keep to a narrow strip along one side.

Schoolyard 03

Blue fills the pitch. Red hugs the edge of the building.

Schoolyard 04

Blue circles the pitch. Red runs the corridor beside it, under the trees.

⁰⁴Why we need you now

We know how to bring girls back. We don't yet know how to make them move.

When a park swaps the pitch-and-playground layout for hammocks, swings and seating, girls come back. The ratio flips. But they still sit. The design changed where girls are — not whether they are active.

That is the gap our next phase will close: which physical changes to a schoolyard actually get girls running, climbing and playing — and keep them active past the age when they usually stop.

Traditional park — football pitch & playground

5 boys : 2 girls

Redesigned park — hammocks, swings, seating

1 boy : 3 girls

Next · 01Go international

Extend the mapping to schoolyards in more countries, with the same method, so the evidence can't be dismissed as local.

Next · 02Find what moves them

Test specific design changes and measure what actually increases girls' physical activity — not just their presence.

Next · 03Change the standard

Turn the results into design guidelines for schoolyards first, then parks and public space for all children.

Become a partner →

Make
Her
Move

Grzesikowska & Jaskulska · Coming soon

⁰⁵ The book

Read it first.

Years of fieldwork, maps and children's own voices in one book: how schoolyards and parks decide who gets to move, and what architects, schools and cities can do about it.

One email when the book is out. Nothing else.

⁰⁶Partner with us

Put your name on the change.

Lead partner

Fund the international phase

Named as lead partner on the research and the book
A pilot schoolyard redesign carries your name
Co-branded launch event
First access to findings

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Research partner

Fund a country

Support mapping in one country
Logo on research outputs and the book
A talk for your team or community

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Supporter

Fund a schoolyard

Support the study of one schoolyard
Thanks in the book
Project updates

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Individuals

Give what you can

Every contribution goes to fieldwork
Your name in the book's thank-you list

Support

^→For football clubs

Your next generation of players is already in the schoolyard. Most of them are girls you never see.

This isn't research against football. It's research for more girls playing — including football. In a month of observation, only two girls joined a game. Help us find out what would change that.

Request the partnership deck

⁰⁷Watch